It seems Justice Carlisle Greaves is not one to cower to public pressure or be fazed by the fact that he may be standing alone on a particular issue. .
He is known to be an intimidating figure in the courtroom for accused and counsel alike. But beneath the rough exterior, there appears to be a man who is both sensible and sensitive.
We are not here to stroke the Judge’s ego. What we are doing is highlighting an example of a member of bench who is determined to prove that Barbados’ highly criticised judicial system can work much better than it currently does if all the relevant parts move in sync.
There are others on the judiciary who are playing their part. Greaves, however, adds his voice in a way that forces us to do some introspection.
The experienced jurist, who has also served on the bench in The Cayman Islands and Bermuda, has long been a critic of the slow pace of justice in Barbados, insisting that systems can be introduced to remedy the bugbear.
Recently, he lit a fire under the Barbados Police Service, critical of its over-reliance on confessions to procure convictions in the courts.
He called on them to employ modern, scientific policing practices to achieve their successes against the criminal elements in our communities.
Some in the constabulary may have taken the comments as a weighty critique from its own side of the criminal justice structure. But the Justice’s strong words are appropriate because such advice seeks to preserve the integrity of the system and protect the image of the island’s hard-working police officers .
If independent scientific analysis is used to prove the investigators’ case and effect a conviction, then the suggestions that confessions were “beaten out of accused persons” will be put to rest.
Justice Greaves was appointed in 2019, along with several other jurists to clear the embarrassingly large backlog of criminal cases. He has expressed frustration too at hindrances to the efforts of his colleagues to achieve the set goal.
Last August he ranted at the delays. He insisted that if there was credible proof to charge an accused person, then that evidence must be sufficient for the matter to proceed to trial.
“I hold the view strongly that if the police have enough evidence to charge a defendant, an accused, they must have enough evidence to be ready to proceed and I cannot see any justification whatsoever for the long delays you have had in this court system for so long.
“I cannot see any justification at all why men should be held in custody for so many years without a clue as to when they are going to have their day in court,” he insisted.
Justice Greaves has rightly called for “proactive case management” in the Magistrates’ Court and the Supreme Court if cases are to be tried within a reasonable time.
Judges are known for putting the fear of God into the accused but certainly our judges also want to ensure that the system is fair to those whose matters must be adjudicated.
We must also remember that the local justice system also presides over civil cases such divorce settlements, land disputes, defamation suits, disputes between commercial entities, paternity matters, injury matters, child custody matters, foreclosures, evictions, medical malpractice. These are also examples of cases that are languishing in our court system, sometimes for decades with no end in sight for parties. In some cases people die before resolution is found.
Earlier this week, we witnessed how one cog in the system can throw the entire criminal justice process into disarray.
It seems that while the rest of the population is moving on with life as usual following the removal of the curfew and relaxation of many of the COVID-19 protocols, given the falling rate of COVID-19 infections, life is at a near standstill at our prison at Dodds, St Philip.
The disruption caused by the failure of the prison to undertake the process of facilitating accused persons to have their day in court, is causing distress to Court officers, judges, attorneys, and accused.
“The prison has got to get a COVID plan. They’ve got to rearrange their business differently. They can’t be delaying us with trials.
“Something has got to be done with the way Dodds operates with this COVID. If it is as the world is saying, that we got to live with it, then we can’t be belabouring this for all these weeks. We can’t even do Zoom?” the judge complained.
It may be easy for some to disregard the rights of people to fair and speedy trials but if we are to be regarded as a modern, civilised society, we must certainly fix our system and not grumble when an outside body like the Caribbean Court of Justice, hammers us for our sloth system of administering justice.
